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3 Great Tools to Increase Productivity

Author: Mahdad

When you’re running a small business, it’s hard to identify which tools increase productivity and which tools drain resources. The three tools reviewed below increase productivity at your small business by creating an integrated email, task management and calendar experience. Try it out and let us know what you think with your comments below.

Google Apps
If you haven’t made the switch to using Google Apps for your business yet it’s never too late. Google Apps provides a lot of the functionality that you get from more expensive platforms like Microsoft Exchange – but at a much lower cost. It allows you to share calendars internally with your team, sync your calendar across devices (including your phones/tablets), and collaborate on shared docs via Google Drive. In addition, you can host your business email (you@yourbusiness.com) directly within gmail.

The switch is a bit of work if you’re already using other tools, but once you get used to it you’ll be very happy with productivity gains as well as improved communication with your team.

But don’t stop there. That’s the foundation to set up first. Keep going.

CalenMob
Once you start using Google Calendar you’ll likely want more advanced cross-device calendar features. Your native calendar may sync events but you’ll run into limitations when you try to invite attendees or schedule repeating events. Enter CalenMob for iOS. This little app will bring Google’s full calendar experience to you on the go and keep your schedule up to date.

GoTasks
How do you manage your to do lists these days? A notebook, sticky notes, or an app? As many will tell you, the app is generally considered the most productive. But there are literally hundreds of to do list apps on the market, each tailored to a different kind of user or work habit. If you want to further benefit from an integrated Google experience though, check out GoTasks (on iOS or Android) a light weight app to manage your to do list.

While you can access Google Tasks from your phone, the experience lacks functionality and is web based to boot. (It only works when you have an internet connection.) As a native app, GoTasks can be used anywhere and will sync once it detects an internet signal. It’s not overloaded with categorization of things to do today, tomorrow or this week. It’s less structured, and more flexible, which makes sense as to do lists are constantly growing, shrinking and being reordered. The point of a list is to increase productivity, not to give you more to do. Why have to put items constantly into a ‘to do this week’ or ‘tomorrow’ category when it can easily be moved to the top and be done with NOW?

Like Google’s search simplicity you’ll enjoy this simple little app on the go and get more out of a day.

What other tools, posts and resources do you have to increase productivity?